Last week, as the people of Europe grumblingly got on with life under lockdown, they could at least give thanks to one glamorous duo for sprinkling a little stardust on their unappealing lives.
Super-agent Mino Raiola and super-progenitor Alf-Inge Haaland flew to Spain on a private jet to negotiate face-to-face with the leading executives at Barcelona and Real Madrid.
Sure, they could have done the meetings over Zoom, but then there would have been no paparazzi shots of them striding out of the airport to put in the papers. It would have been selfish to deprive Europeans of the chance of seeing these two heroes living their best lives.
Also last week Raiola gave an interview to The Athletic in which he competed with fellow agent Jonathan Barnett to give the more delusionally self-serving quotes. He ludicrously compared Alex Ferguson to Sepp Blatter, and claimed not to understand why people so often complain about football agents making too much money.
The thing that makes Dortmund a big club is the crowd but there have been no fans on the Yellow Wall for more than a year
“You don’t criticise the people that on the stock exchange make a lot of money because billions go between their hands. That’s a part of what they’re in,” he said.
If Raiola is currently going through one of his more visible phases it’s because he is hoping to pull off, against all odds, a 2017-style mega-transfer in the depressed market of 2021. The Athletic interview eventually got around to the subject of Erling Haaland’s future.
“With Haaland, everyone was wrong,” said Raiola mysteriously.
Wrong how? – you wondered – who was wrong?
When Dortmund bought Haaland from Salzburg for €20 million everyone agreed that he was a good signing at this release-clause price. That was already obvious. There were those who believed that signing him for €20 million would turn out to be a poisoned chalice, with Mino quickly agitating for the next transfer and the next gigantic commission. These people weren’t wrong.
Career
Arguably the person who was most wrong was Raiola himself for deciding Dortmund was the best place for Haaland to take the next step in his career. The move has not worked out, though in fairness to Raiola some of the things that have gone wrong could not have been foreseen.
The thing that makes Dortmund a big club is the crowd – they have the biggest average attendance in world football – but there have been no fans on the Yellow Wall for more than a year. Take away the crowd, the drums, the drifting smoke, and BVB suddenly seem an unromantic and maybe even unattractive operation.
A few years ago, apparently despairing of seriously competing with Bayern, they decided to concentrate on making money in the transfer market rather than putting the strongest possible team on the pitch. They would bring in young supertalents and hothouse their development, tolerating their inconsistencies as the cost of this way of doing business.
If Haaland can break free and run riot there will be those at City who wonder whether Guardiola's system has its limits. Is football really so complicated?
It turns out they were as complacent about retaining their place as Germany’s second team as they had been fatalistic about their chances of challenging Bayern for number one.
This season they have been surpassed by teams who have kept their focus on the primary objective of being competitive on the field. It’s not only the well-resourced outfits at RB Leipzig and Wolfsburg who have left Dortmund trailing, but also Eintracht Frankfurt, who beat Dortmund on Saturday to go seven points clear of them in the race for Champions League qualification with only seven matches remaining.
Haaland has scored 33 goals in 32 games this season, including 21 in 22 league games, but even this phenomenal goal return has not been enough to prevent Dortmund losing 10 of 27 league matches. He now faces the prospect of a season out of the Champions League, which was never in the plan. When you’ve been scoring goals at a faster rate than any striker in the history of the competition, you expect to be able to keep playing in it.
Release fee
The plan was for Haaland to leave Dortmund next summer for his scheduled release fee of €75 million, but Dortmund being fifth in the league changes the schedule. The release fee doesn’t apply this summer, and the talk is Dortmund might be prepared to reluctantly accept €180 million, realistically implying that they would in fact settle for considerably less. Hence Raiola and his father embarking on their little tour.
But where to? Barcelona? Heavily indebted. PSG? Wrong league, and they already have more star forwards than they can handle. Chelsea? A bit on the small side. Liverpool? Be serious.
Real Madrid seem an obvious choice, and Haaland’s style resonates with the power-worshipping aesthetic of a club that has been nicknamed the Vikings. Madrid have always believed in stars rather than tactics. From Haaland’s point of view going there would offer the chance to follow and maybe one day surpass his hero Cristiano Ronaldo.
The other serious option is one of the Manchester clubs, and you would expect City to have the edge. They have more money, a better team, a more celebrated coach, and Haaland senior played for City, while Old Trafford was the venue for the most infamous moment of his career.
The only problem is that Haaland doesn’t seem like a Pep Guardiola type of player. A pure number 9 who hardly participates in build-up play is not an obvious fit for a coach who frequently fields strikerless formations and has talked about how his ideal team is “11 midfielders”.
And this is why Tuesday’s Champions League quarter-final between City and Dortmund is so fascinating. If City, who have won 26 of their last 27 matches, can control the game and contain Haaland, then it proves the superiority of the system over the individual.
But if Haaland can break free and run riot there will be those at City who wonder whether Guardiola’s system has its limits. Is football really so complicated? Maybe if you get the chance to get a striker who scores three goals every two Champions League games, you should simply sign him and figure out the tactics later.
